


Fine, Then, He Had no Rival - None at All

by orphan_account



Series: Two Spirits of GO? No, there are many spirits of Go, in this world. [2]
Category: Hikaru no Go, Sengoku Basara
Genre: Gen, Phones mean people don't just barge in saying 'you know what?!', another prologue, is that good or bad?, no just barging in recent decades, this one more HnG flavoured?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7667758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surely that was done to hurt him. Tell him he wasn't worth playing with. And who was Ishida Toyotomi to him, anyway?</p><p>Some time later, he learned of that plane. Maybe it wasn't. But when he told father, his father looked as if there was some deeper secret.</p><p>Nothing was simple. Except Go, and Go was hard work, Akira Toya knew that since always. Always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fine, Then, He Had no Rival - None at All

**Fine, Then, He Had no Rival - None at All**

 

Surely that was done to hurt him. Tell him he wasn't worth playing with. And who was Ishida Toyotomi to him, anyway? Mitsunari Ishida Toyotomi, a brilliant eight-year-old and a Go player, just like Touya himself. And so what? If Mitsunari Toyotomi was giving up on Go, that was none of Akira Touya's concerns. None at all.

 

It was Mitsunari Ishida who named himself Akira's rival, just like their fathers were rivals. It was Mitsunari's plan. It was Mitsunari's presumption. Akira was never asked - it was none of his business, if Toyotomi gave up on Go forever! None at all. He wouldn't let that affect his own matches, he swore. If Mitsunari could just give up on Go like that, then he was never even a true player. And he was much too weak to be Akira's rival.

****

Some time later, he learned of that plane. Maybe it wasn't. But when he told father, his father looked as if there was some deeper secret. His father, when he thought Akira wouldn't hear him, said _when all this passes, I'll challenge Toyotomi again, maybe in secret._ Akira heard it, and, knowing he wasn't supposed to have heard it, hesitated.

*****

A month later, he did try to telephone Mitsunari Toyotomi. However, Mitsunari hasn't picked up. And so, whether Akira knew or thought he knew that the famous Go pro's, Toyotomi's, death, maybe wasn't as set in stone as everybody thought, and if he failed to impart that knowledge to his would-be-wannabe-rival, that was his 'rival's' own fault, wasn't it?

Why, then, did he try calling again next day? And the day afterwards?

*****

And kept calling him for three years, and then gave up on that - no, not really, but Mitsunari changed the phone number, and Akira Touya wasn't that desperate to beg Ishida's classmate for Toyotomi's new phone number - no Akira Touya wasn't a Tokugawa, or something of the like.

He had a feeling that if he told the _secret_ to that Tokugawa, Mitsunari would soon know, even if Tokugawa had to, who knows, stop playing baseball, rugby, and Go (Tokugawa was doing too many things, in Akira's opinion, that was why he mastered precisely none of them). But this was _not_ Tokugawa's secret to tell.

Not at all.

And who knew better than Akira - and possibly Mitsunari - and possibly a few others - that Ieyasu Tokugawa would, somehow, subconsciously, accidently, completely not on purpose - make a secret his own, even while crediting it to Akira Touya, when dangling it and revealing it - to Mitsunari? Somehow, he would, accidently so, maybe, Akira was quite sure. He wasn't certain why he was so sure, but he was. Oh, he was.

Maybe it was his last match - just five days ago - with Ieyasu Tokugawa that made him think so. Yes, he remembered that match well. Just some textbook moves, but Ieyasu flaunted them with a grin that would make ignorant bystanders think Tokugawa created those from scratch.

Tokugawa had lost that match.


End file.
